Podcast 17: Put Things Away in an Exact Place, Beware “My Preciousss,” and the Challenge of Staying in Touch.

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Subscribe

Coming up: To celebrate our 20th episode, we’re going to do an episode that features our listeners. So leave us a voicemail answer at 774-277-9336, by June 24, 2015, to one of these questions:

— if you could change one aspect of a relationship, what would you change? Huge, trivial, any relationship.

— what happiness demerit would you give yourself? what gold star would you bestow?

Thanks so much to the folks who have already sent in comments. Fascinating.

This week:

Try This at Home: Have an exact place for everything. Agree, disagree?

Happiness Stumbling Block: Beware of anything we call "our preciousssssss." Whenever Gollum refers to the ring, he calls it “my precious.” “Losst it is, my precious, lost, lost! Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost!“ Want to see a ten-second clip of Gollum talking about his precious, from The Lord of the Rings movie The Two Towers? It's here. Also, I mention being an "Abstainer." You can hear a discussion of that term in episode 2.

Listener Question: "What's some deeper advice for Owls living in a Lark world? And did you realize that the tone of the show was 'yay, Larks' and 'boo, Owls?'" Wow, I certainly didn't mean to sound dismissive. I'm a big believer in the fact of chronotypes (morning people and night people), and that we should try help shape the world to accommodate a person's Owl nature.

Elizabeth’s Demerit: Elizabeth feels that she's not doing a good job of staying in touch with her old friends who live on the East Coast. Elizabeth mentions the "update" habit that we discuss in episode 2.

Gretchen’s Gold Star: I give a gold star to my mother-in-law, who helped me re-frame the experience of plane rides, to make them more enjoyable.